What Do Women Want?

February, 4, 2014 | 5 Comments

Comments

  1. Re: Harlan Krumholz: You might have a chance to engage him on Twitter, would get some attention if done right. He is not a pop star like Ben Goldacre, more a classic medical wonk — possibly more open to a public dialogue. Worth a try anyway.

    His handle is @hmkyale The investigation he led of Medtronic’s INFUSE back-surgery disaster was the real thing, and an important contribution. It did give me a slight chill to see it described in such “positive” terms in the NYT since as I read them, neither study was all that reassuring to INFUSE users. (Neither study discounted the risk of cancer, and the Times did not mention the far more common risk of uncontrolled bone growth into the wee spaces of the spinal column, causing excruciating pain …)

    Of course, the key was that Medtronic turned over their data with FBI guys in flak jackets at the door. J&J may have come mighty close to that. What happens when the cops go home?

  2. The patients are revolting……always loved that…..made me laugh…..

    Obama could have lost his life when the woman tried to drive her car into the White House, off ‘er ‘ead and how nobody has taken Witty out, on a rage off Seroxat, I don’t know.

    NEW FEARS OVER DANGER PILLS is the headline today.

    Is it about Seroxat?

    Noooooo. It is about Mortal Kombat, A pill which has a red devil imprinted on it.

    It is a combination of ectasy and mephredone and Ketamine – a horse tranquiliser.

    How long has Ectasy been around? Now it is tweaked.

    CONFUSION, SWEATS, THEN HOURS LATER YOU COULD BE DEAD

    Dr. Richard Stevenson, a specialist in emergency medicine at Glasgow Royal Infirmary said:

    “After taking any Ecstasy style drug, the human body is at risk of suffering a devastating chain of reaction than can kill in only a few hours.
    Doctors have to reverse the potential lethal effects of highly toxic substances contained in drugs such as Mortal Kombat.

    Patients normally present with agitation, confusion, their heart rate is fast and they feel anxious.
    We sedate patients with anything from Diazepam to powerful anti-psychotic drugs.
    We have to use quite serious medications.
    It is for their own safety and it is not a pleasant experience.

    Ectasy causes a release of SEROTONIN in the body.

    When people start presenting with signs of severe toxicity their chances of survival are low.”

    Black, white, the north and south divide, civil war and all that…..voting for data transparency, and, all that…..

    When is anyone going to realise that our leeeeeetle ad, happy pills, have the just the same toxic qualities as anything resembling Ecstasy.

    Ecstasy is such a good word.

    Isn’t this what the psychiatrist who advised me to take Seroxat was sort of saying.

    My friend, the doctor, Rosemary, used to confide to me.

    “Patients are revolting. They come in, sad and depressed and a day out shopping would cure all their ails.”

    She was so right in so many ways.

  3. Today at 5:55 PM
    Ben, have you been cuckolded – you are nice and brave and I like you, but where are you really coming from?
    Have you really sold your soul or however much we like you, you are doing us GSK, litigants, no favours.

    Dear Friends

    On Thursday Johnson & Johnson announced that it would give all the pharmaceutical clinical trial data it holds to researchers. This is a big step forward for the AllTrials campaign. Read a great New York Times piece on the J&J announcement, Give the Data to the People. J&J is following the lead of GSK who last year pledged to give researchers access to data from trials it has done since its formation as a company. GSK has developed an online portal to share this data and earlier this month this was joined by other companies. We’ll be asking for your help soon to make sure lots of other companies, and non-commercial research funders too, commit to making information from past trials available this year.

    January is barely over but already there’s lots of news:

    •The new EU Clinical Trials Regulation is now only one step away from final agreement. Let your MEP know that you want them to vote on 3rd April in favour of the good changes to the regulation that would mean clinical trials in Europe are registered and results reported. Find MEP’s details and a sample letter here.
    •The UK’s Public Accounts Committee of MPs published a report calling on Government to ensure that all data from all clinical trials, past and present, is made available to regulators and researchers for independent scrutiny. Read more here.
    •Thanks to your donations and fundraising we have been able to start filming an AllTrials campaign video. We will be asking for your help to spread the word about the campaign with the video soon, in the meantime you can see some behind the scenes photos from the video shoot here.

    Best

    Síle

    Síle Lane
    Director of Campaigns
    Sense About Science

    http://www.alltrials.net

    Please donate at https://www.justgiving.com/alltrialsappeal

    Email information: This email was sent to anniebevan@yahoo.co.uk.
    If you no longer wish to receive our periodic emails, please unsubscribe. Thank you.

  4. I hope all persons with brains and guts in psychiatry can organize to demand the proof of this pudding, in the form of a full dish of Risperdal data without preconditions. If you actually succeed, it could strike a blow against the entire deadly plague of antipsychotic over-prescribing, from Zyprexa to Abilify (still the #1 selling drug in the US). And if you don’t, well at least you’ve tested and exposed a false “reform”. That’s valuable too.

    In the case of Risperdal, some of the AUTHORS of the studies might want the chance to see the company’s data for the first time! See this semi-confession from Risperdal coauthor Dr Denis Daneman of Toronto:

    http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/major-fraud-plea-has-university-scientists-regretting-journal-article/33713

    If this guy is truly penitent, he needs to be first in line to publicly demand a complete look at the data he “signed off on.”

  5. “It has hired my group, Yale University Open Data Access Project, or YODA, to fully oversee the release of the data.”

    So why does Yale so easily give in to the purchasing of their brand name? I’d love to know how much money Harlan’s group gets. I’m offended his title is Give the Data to the People.

    And I think we can see how this is going to play out. A pharma sponsored group of (brand name) scholars will write a request. It will be granted by YODA. They will make a report confirming the results of the original study. It will all look “independently done”. And still we won’t see the data.

    Not that it really matters but I’ll bet Harlan was handed that article to sign his name to. Ghost written PR.

    Would be nice to see Yale’s journalism school take issue with this, or if there’s any open source advocates in their CS department.

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